


Observation 101

by potentiality_26



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossdressing, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Pre-Het, Sibling Incest, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2574173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>That was Mycroft Holmes sitting a few tables away; Greg would know him anywhere.  It wasn’t his presence in itself that was so surprising; this might not have been Greg’s kind of place, but it had to be Mycroft’s.  The surprise lay in the fact that he had a woman with him and Greg had been reasonably sure that Mycroft was gay.  Gayer than picnic basket.  Gayer than Christmas.  Gayer than… something really very gay.</em>
</p><p>Greg is stood up on a blind date, whereupon things get... strange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Observation 101

**Author's Note:**

> Written to [this brilliant prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/22393.html?thread=131736185#t131736185) on the kink meme. The Greg/Molly pre-shippiness here got away from me a little, but they're pretty dense here, and I figured they deserved to get a nice date out of it. This isn’t Brit-picked, and having been to London only once I’m not sure how valid a lot of this is as a situation, but here we are.

This wasn’t Greg’s kind of place.

He was, luckily, dressed for it- he was wearing one of his nicest suits and looking thoroughly presentable- but he still felt he stuck out somehow. If he’d known how nice the restaurant really was, he might have suggested an alternative venue- but he hadn’t known the name off the top of his head, which wasn’t entirely surprising given how emphatically not his kind of place this was. He was here now, at any rate, and luckily there was a bar, from which he could sit and watch the door and at least not look stood up in addition to being very much not the usual clientele.

Of course, technically speaking, Greg hadn’t been stood up yet. He was early and if his date happened to be running late it would look like this. All the same, blind dates hadn’t ever gone especially well for Greg- from what he remembered of them from before his marriage, anyway- and his imagination had already somewhat run away with him.

Greg sat at the bar, ordered himself a drink, and scanned the room- hoping, faintly, that he’d light on something to think about other than all the ways things could still go wrong.

His eyes stopped, and he stared. He got worried that he’d be caught staring, so he tore his eyes away and then looked again, more surreptitiously- half convinced that what he’d thought he had seen was some kind of mistake.

Apparently it wasn’t.     

That was Mycroft Holmes sitting a few tables away; Greg would know him anywhere. It wasn’t his presence in itself that was so surprising; this might not have been Greg’s kind of place, but it had to be Mycroft’s. The surprise lay in the fact that he had a woman with him and Greg had been reasonably sure that Mycroft was gay. Gayer than picnic basket. Gayer than Christmas. Gayer than… something really very gay.

Being bi himself, Greg hadn’t had a problem with the idea that Mycroft was gay- or rather with his assumption that Mycroft was gay. Greg had in fact found him rather dishy, in that ‘if I wasn’t married, and your brother wasn’t crazy as a loon, and you weren’t a total prat I might be checking you out right now’ way that Greg was aware had only ever happened to him in the history of ever.

Not quite ready to let go of the notion, Greg tried to weigh the look of Mycroft and his… date together as dispassionately as possible.

She was, first of all, gorgeous. Her hair was long and smooth, cascading beautifully over her shoulders. She had on what Greg would have said was just a little too much makeup for a business dinner. She was slender and- standing- would be rather tall, and her curves weren’t exactly generous, but the black sheath she was wearing showed her to her best advantage. It was simple but glamorous and very clearly a Date Dress. Greg had lived with a woman for long enough to know one when he saw it.  

All in all, this was unlikely to be business dinner, which was amazing.

Whether he was gay, straight, bi or anything else, Greg had a hard time picturing Mycroft on a date. Period.

The woman pointed out something Greg couldn’t see and Mycroft glanced sidelong to look at it. The woman added something, mouth curving in a look of mischief that was somehow familiar to Greg, though he couldn’t think how. Mycroft laughed suddenly, looking happy in a way Greg had never seen- or expected to see- on someone so cool and controlled.

A hard time picturing Mycroft on a date indeed. Now Greg was going to have a hard time _not_ picturing it- and wasn’t that an awkward thought? The next time Mycroft poked his nose into whatever Greg was or wasn’t doing with Sherlock, would this pop up behind Greg’s eyes?

If it did, they might end up having to fit him for a straight jacket.

Mycroft and his date had evidently been here for a while; their entrees were cleared away as Greg watched and tried to keep himself from watching, and he hoped for another distraction. As if on cue, his phone beeped and he discovered a message explaining that his own potential date had gotten caught up with work and wouldn’t be able to make it. Greg brushed off the apologies as gracefully as he could; given how many people- including his wife- he’d stood up for work reasons over the years, he didn’t exactly have any right to complain.

For that reason alone, Greg thought in passing that it was unfortunate that he and his potential date had missed each other- everyone who had a job that frequently interfered with their personal life was always in search of someone who would understand.

But at the same time, Greg wasn’t all that sorry. He had heard that these kinds of dates did sometimes end in lifelong romance- or whatever the aging career copper version of that might be- but it would still have been awkward, and it would still have had plenty of opportunities to end badly. Chances were good that they wouldn’t have been completely enamored of each other right off- which would have been harder to take when he only had to look a few tables to the left to see completely enamored in full swing.  

Greg told himself, firmly, to leave and forget the whole business- possibly with some alcoholic assistance. He allowed himself one more look, though. Mycroft had clearly said something amusing, because the woman was laughing. Greg felt, again, a surge of inexplicable familiarity, but he couldn’t place her, try as he might. He decided that it was just the look of a woman who was having a great time with a man she was in love with. He hadn’t seen that look up close in a tragically long time.

He dismissed the impression that there was anything more to it than that, and began making his way towards the door.

Greg only got a few steps before he saw something, or rather someone, else that made him stop short.

*   *   *

If the text Tom had just sent her was any indication, Tom wasn’t coming.

At first, Molly had thought he was just running late- he often was, it was part of what made him Tom and Molly had always accepted it, reasoning that it wasn’t as though she didn’t have her own problems. If work came up, she had been known to stand the man up altogether, and compared to that what was waiting alone in a restaurant for five or ten minutes? Molly had sat silently nursing her drink and looking around- and then Tom had sent her the text saying he wouldn’t make it. About to leave, she had looked up from her phone and into a silver vase which, interestingly enough, afforded her an excellent view of the couple a few tables behind her.

That in itself wasn’t especially of interest- except that she recognized Mycroft Holmes right off, and he was on what was clearly a date with a woman Molly had never seen before. She flushed as she wondered if Mycroft had noticed her- sitting alone- in turn, but the two of them were leaning close together and seemed… quite wrapped up in one another.

For once, Molly wouldn’t be surprised if Mycroft hadn’t noticed anything.

Molly briefly forgot about paying for her drink and leaving- as she knew she ought to- in favor of watching the two of them for a moment. Just when she was about to make herself leave, she looked up and noticed Greg Lestrade coming towards her.  

“Hi,” he said, more than a little awkwardly. “If you’re waiting for someone or anything, feel free to say ‘Go away, Greg’ but I saw you over here and I thought I’d say ‘hi.’ So. Um. Hi.”

“Hi,” she replied, actually feeling less awkward than usual in the face of his discomfort. “I’m not, actually. My- my boyfriend couldn’t make it.”

“Mine either. My date, I mean. Not my boyfriend.”

“Right,” she laughed. “I was about to go.”

“Do you… need to? I mean, we’re both here and I don’t see the harm.”

Molly contemplated him. “I don’t see the harm either,” she agreed. He smiled and sat. Not too far to the side of them, a waiter relaxed. They perused the menu, exchanged various pleasantries, and then the waiter approached. When they ordered, Molly ordered a simple appetizer and nothing else. She wasn’t particularly hungry, and this way she could excuse splurging on the desert later. It seemed to her that Greg was doing something similar; he ordered a reasonably inexpensive dish that Molly remembered the name of.

“Tom said that was good,” she observed.  

“Right,” Greg said. “Tom.”

Molly had the brief- and silly, and wrong- instinct that he was a little… jealous. But it was silly, and it was wrong. If that was negativity in his tone, it was only because- like most of people who cared about her- he hadn’t had the best impression of Tom. Though that too was silly, Molly sort of liked that her friends weren’t wild about Tom. If they’d all took a moment to tell her how glad they were she had found someone so normal and that she was moving on- because of course they all knew about Sherlock- it would have made it even worse that she was starting to rethink things with him.

And yes, Molly was aware- at least peripherally, anyway- that most of the people she was close with at the moment knew her through Sherlock, and that most of them were uncomfortable with Tom because of a certain… resemblance. Molly knew about it. She had noticed it when they first met and, yes, it was what had picked him out from the crowd for her- but then she had gotten to know Tom and completely forgotten about it because he was nothing whatsoever like Sherlock. It was difficult to see the resemblance between them when Tom fell all over himself at a social function, or said something honestly sweet without expecting anything because of it. He simply wasn’t like Sherlock, and it was so easy to forget the physical in the face of that.

Anyway, it was silly to think that Greg had been thinking of Tom in any manner other than the faintly disapproving one most of the people who considered themselves her friends seemed to. She changed the subject to something work related, and it held out until their meal arrived.

Several times, Molly got lost in her own thoughts, but when she looked up from her dinner to apologize she noticed that Greg was peering as suavely as he could over her shoulder.

Molly leaned close, in what she hoped was a conspiratorial manner. If she was wrong about this, she’d sound ridiculous, but… she didn’t think she was wrong. “Are you watching Mr. Holmes?” she asked.

He flushed. “I- um. Yes? You saw them too?”

“I can see their reflection, sort of, in that silver vase thing.” He looked over his shoulder sharply and saw it, then he laughed quietly. She liked his laugh. “It’s cute, right? Although I was thinking that it sort of puts the date I would have been having in the shade.”

Greg looked surprised, but before she had time to be embarrassed about her honesty he said, “I was thinking the same thing. Also, I was really surprised because I would have laid money the man was gay.”

“Oh, my God. Yes. So very gay.”  

She hadn’t minded the thought that he was gay, of course. Mycroft was intelligent and clearly very competent at everything he did- two things Molly found very attractive- and also good-looking, though in a different way than his brother. His obvious unavailability had been to Molly rather a godsend- the last thing she needed was another hopeless crush on a Holmes. It had always been clear to her that when Mycroft was nice to her it was because it was polite or because he wanted to make a bad day a little better. With Sherlock, it had sometimes seemed like he liked her too- except when he took it into his head to make it clear that he really, really didn’t. Molly was glad that was over- or, at least, as over as it could be. She didn’t think she’d ever completely forget how she’d felt about Sherlock, but after helping him stage his suicide- and spending a crush-annihilating amount of time in his company- she’d resolved to move on and known that it wouldn't be to Mycroft. 

He had, it bore mentioning, taken her dinner at this very restaurant a few times- it was how she’d developed a taste for their dessert, something Mycroft was apparently willing to pay handsomely to watch someone else eat- and Tom had been happy to indulge her. At any rate, thinking he was gay and that if they had come to see each other pretty regularly, of late, it was because he was making sure that Sherlock’s only other support system wasn’t cracking under the strain, Molly had thought nothing of those dinners. But, for a second, she’d seen Mycroft and this woman and realized that it was date, and wondered if those had been dates too and she’d been really very stupid.  

But the more Molly looked the more she detected an obvious familiarity between them, in their body language and the way they talked, and she became sure that these two had been together for a long time, which meant that her dinners with Mycroft had been exactly what she had thought they were after all. Her relief was enormous.

After dinner, she and Greg moved on to dessert, and then to the bill, which Greg took one look at and frowned enormously.

“What?” she asked. “I’m more than happy to play my half, and anyway I know I got one of the least expensive thing on the menu.”

“Me too,” he said. “But the bill’s been paid.”

“By w… oh.” She didn’t look behind them, or in the vase thing- she was blushing too hard. “He knows we were talking about him, probably, doesn’t he?”

“I think Mycroft Holmes would know if we were talking about him even if he was halfway across the city. As it is, of course he knows. He’s gone, by the way, you can stop trying to make up for looking at them all this time by keeping very still now.” Greg said it with enough humor in his voice that Molly knew that he would have reacted the same way under different circumstances, and she snorted out an awkward laugh.

She slumped forward, still laughing. “Where’d they go?”

“They’re dancing.”

“I’m sorry.” Now she couldn’t stop laughing, and to her relief he joined in. “I can’t help it; I need to look.”

“At this point it doesn’t matter. Anyway, after everything that he and Sherlock put us through, I would have ordered the most expensive thing on the menu if I’d known it was on him. Given that I didn’t, I think we can stare a little more.”

Accepting this benediction, Molly craned until she could see the dance floor. Mycroft and his date were dancing so close it was nearly a full body hug. Molly hadn’t known the man for long, but it didn’t take much to understand that thought he was expressive, he showed genuine emotions even more rarely than Sherlock did. He had his nose buried in the woman’s hair and he looked intoxicated.

She swallowed and looked away- wasted free dinner or no, she felt as though she had just seen something very… illicit.

When Greg and Molly made for the door, she allowed herself one more look. Mycroft and his date were still on the dance floor, though they had separated enough that Mycroft had to learn close to say something to her, his mouth lingering against the shell of her ear. Her pale face reddened ever so slightly, but the wicked grin her mouth curled into showed that it wasn’t embarrassment that had made her flush.

With a hand on the small of her back, Mycroft guided the woman towards the next room- where the elevator was- and Molly concluded that what Mycroft had told her was that he had a room in this hotel.

Molly flushed a little herself, because she could picture it far too well- and that wasn’t exactly polite, was it?

“A little presumptuous,” Greg remarked in a low voice.

Realizing that Greg had been watching them too- thinking more or less the same thing, to boot- turned Molly’s embarrassment into nervous amusement and she laughed once again. He looked at her sidelong and then laughed too. Greg was right; it was a little presumptuous. But Mycroft clearly had money to burn and if his date hadn’t wanted to go upstairs there would have been no need to mention it.

But it was obvious to Molly from the way the woman had looked at Mycroft from the start that this wasn’t a first or even a second date- and it had been likewise obvious that she would want the evening to end the same way he did. The only surprise, really, was that they weren’t going to home together. But maybe Mycroft couldn’t afford to take a lover home even once, let alone share his home with her- he probably had too many secrets- and maybe she… Molly couldn’t think. Maybe she had a flatmate or something.

They vanished around a corner, and Molly took Greg’s offered arm and set about putting the whole thing from her mind.  

*   *   *

“You noticed our audience, I presume.” Mycroft was leaning his shoulder against the wall. He’d had a little more to drink than he typically did- his smile came easier and he was more loose-limbed than usual. Partly because of that, he wasn't worried, as such- just slightly curious and more than slightly amused. But of course he was also just generally more relaxed. He found time for one of their date nights only rarely- and they’d been getting rarer still, for various reasons- but it got something out of his system that nothing else did, being able to- for once- show what he had off. It was very nearly as frustrating as it was relaxing, though, in some respects. Waiting for the elevator- waiting to _touch_ \- was its own kind of torture, and it was a pleasure and an agony in one to be able to _show_ it. To know that everyone in the restaurant had known that only the thinnest veil of propriety was keeping them from tearing each other’s clothes off right there.

“Of course,” came the immediate- somewhat cross- reply.

The elevator clicked. Small talk was made with the man operating it, and with each other, until they were delivered to the floor of the suite Mycroft had booked.

“And you don’t think you were recognized?” Mycroft did have to check, though his mind was almost totally on what lay on the other side of that door.

“Of course not,” was just as immediate. His date glanced into the mirror on one wall, smiling rather smugly at ‘her’ appearance, while Mycroft retrieved his key. “As I’ve often said- people see, but they do not observe.” Sherlock’s eyes glittered with amusement, and something more. Having dinner together in public was an exercise in patience for Sherlock that he’d practiced rarely since he’d left their parents house, and his frustration was pleasant to see.

“Indeed, brother mine,” Mycroft returned, holding open the door.

Sherlock snorted at the chivalry, but slipped inside. He was fairly vibrating with energy; there would be time for him be difficult about things later. There always was.

“Have I mentioned how lovely you look?”

“Once or twice,” Sherlock replied, in tone that suggested once or twice more wouldn’t hurt. For all he was vain about his appearance- as indeed he was- he’d never especially cared to catch anyone’s eye, unless he could use it to get something he wanted. Compliments to his disguises, however, were more than appreciated.

And it _was_ a compliment to his disguise, there was no doubt about that. The sultry makeup, the floral perfume, the astonishingly flattering dress- Mycroft found the feminine trappings attractive, but only in as much as he found anything- and everything- about Sherlock attractive. The door clicked shut behind Mycroft and he leaned against it. “In that case,” he said, voice low. “You look lovely.”

Sherlock’s eyes went dark and he took an unsteady step forward. He was unfairly balanced in those heels, so his clumsiness was entirely the result of the predatory look in Mycroft’s eyes. He reached out, the heel of his palm slipping over Mycroft’s lapel. He leaned in, breathing labored.

“Ah.” Mycroft gripped Sherlock’s chin and drew a handkerchief from his pocket. He rubbed off as much of the lipstick as he could.

Sherlock tongue flicked out over his lips. “Thank God,” he said. “I hate that stuff.”

Mycroft laughed and kissed him hard. “Me too,” he remarked, when next he had leisure. His fingers slid into Sherlock’s wig, making fists of the long, straight strands and aching for what lay underneath. His tongue slid against Sherlock’s, and next to the traces of the dessert wine he could indeed still detect the unpleasant waxy flavor of the lipstick. He didn’t know how women bore it regularly. Sherlock groaned and made fists of Mycroft’s jacket while Mycroft’s searching fingers found the correct pins to dislodge the wig and put it aside. Then he returned his hands to Sherlock’s real hair with a sigh and drew him still closer.    

Sherlock fumbled with his buttons, whining softly. He wasn’t as good at multitasking as Mycroft was. Mycroft took pity on him and released him. Sherlock didn’t go far; he kept his grip on Mycroft’s shirt and kissed his jaw. “Why bother with the game, then?” Sherlock asked, in a moment of rare curiosity. He was normally too pleased by the opportunity to test his skills- and to put one over on the general population- to ask questions.

And it turned out that Mycroft wasn’t entirely unaffected himself; it took a moment to collect his thoughts enough to answer. Like Sherlock, Mycroft enjoyed testing his own limits, treading that exceedingly fine line between public displays of affection and public indecency- but even that little bit of humanity was a great deal to admit to Sherlock. “I like it when a room full of people can see us together and _know_. When a certain morgue attendant happens to be among them, so much the better.”

“What’s your objection to Molly?” Sherlock demanded. He had become very protective of her, of late.

“No objection whatsoever. She is a very clever young lady who obviously cares a great deal for you.” Mycroft ran his fingers through Sherlock’s hair again, biting back another too-sentimental sigh. “And it is difficult to resent her for that, especially in light of what she did for you these last two years. But since I cannot really stake my claim, this will have to do.” He added, “And the presence of a certain DI certainly didn’t hurt matters, either, did it, Sherlock?”

He couldn’t resist needling his brother. Lestrade was a handsome man- honorable, honest, and reasonably intelligent besides; under different circumstances… well, there might have been different circumstances. As it was, Mycroft did take a passing interest in the man- and although even a passing interest was occasionally too much for Sherlock to bear, it didn’t warrant this sort of complicated subterfuge. False internet profiles, enough of a courtship to warrant a first meeting… the trouble his little brother had gone to might have boggled a lesser mind. Mycroft Holmes never boggled; he was rarely even surprised, and he wasn’t now.

Sherlock had a jealous streak in him. Given that Mycroft had one himself, he didn’t begrudge Sherlock the tendency- he did, however, find it somewhat dangerous. Not the jealousy in itself so much as Sherlock’s stubborn refusal to admit that he ever entertained any such emotion- until it bubbled up in a display like this.

This wasn’t the first time that jealous streak had prompted Sherlock to do something that was nigh-unfathomable. It was, Mycroft felt, simply lucky that he’d been right and Lestrade’s interest in him was likewise only passing. Indeed, if the way Lestrade had looked at Miss Hooper as they left was anything to judge by, the whole matter might still come to a pleasant conclusion for all parties involved- once Tom was fully removed from the equation, which would come all in good time.     

“No,” Sherlock admitted, somewhat grudgingly. “But of course, the situations aren’t entirely comparable, given that Molly was here- and alone- quite coincidentally.”

Mycroft hummed his agreement.

“Or- perhaps not.” Sherlock frowned. “What do we say about coincidence?”

“That sometimes the universe- like minor government officials- takes the night off and lets itself be lazy?” Mycroft offered. It was, more or less, the truth. Molly was aware of this restaurant primarily because of Mycroft, that much made her presence less than purely coincidental, and given that it was one of his favorites and had likewise become so with Miss Hooper and her more affluent boyfriend it stood to reason that they would all run into each other there at some point. He didn’t want to mention that- for one thing, it didn’t do to give Sherlock all the answers. For another, Mycroft had a feeling that his dinners with Molly were among the things Sherlock didn’t need to know had occurred during his absence.

Sherlock was already some distance ahead- having worked some of this out or simply chosen to dismiss it. “Accepting her presence,” he said, “and given her reaction to the text she received, Tom was held up by a crisis at his work.”

“Goodness,” Mycroft replied. “I hope it isn’t too serious.”

“You wouldn’t know, of course.”

“ _Of course_. Honestly, Sherlock. However would I arrange a thing like that? As I’m sure I already mentioned, it’s my night off.”

Sherlock fingered Mycroft’s lapel. “The innocent face doesn’t suit you, brother dear.” It was clear, though, that he had moved on from the subject entirely; now and then, he was willing to leave the omniscience to Mycroft. “Possessiveness looks slightly better.” And indeed it did; Mycroft pretended he didn’t notice Sherlock’s fits of jealousy, and Sherlock- out of what passed for gratitude, with him- let it be Mycroft’s territory the rest of the time, and he wore it well.

“Regardless of the particular audience, I hope you know it pains me regularly not to be able to… hmm- stake my claim, as the saying goes. In lieu of tattooing my name on your person or something similarly tasteless, this suits me reasonably well. I like it when a room full of people knows that you are mine.”

“Am I yours?” Sherlock asked, faintly amused, faintly pleased. But he couldn’t hide the way his pulse sped up slightly and his eyes went darker still. “Prove it.”

Mycroft did.


End file.
